Tuesday, July 13, 2010

the importance of good soil for your garden and a recipe


when we moved into our new home, we put in raised beds in for our garden. a great idea i thought, because at my last house the gophers destroyed my garden. i was determined to not let them get at this garden. so three beds were erected and lined with chicken wire. we needed a lot of soil, so i bought it from a garden place that sold it whole sale and delivered it. they said that it was ready to be planted. my friend elissa said that she thought i should amend the soil with compost that she started over at the college, but i was sure the soil was fine. i have had nothing but problems. i got 1 fantastic green bean off a plant, i had beautiful flowers that i planted get wiped out by pincher bugs, nothing was growing at all. so i decided to get compost from the college and work it into the soil, even though it was late. at least my tomatoes were growing! i go out last week and all of the cucumbers on my armenian cucumber plant had shriveled and turned yellow and then yesterday i noticed that all of the blossoms on my tomato plant were just falling off! we had harvested a little bit from the sad garden, but i must say i have really learned my lesson. i am going to re-work all of the soil before the fall, and mulch it and then start over for next season. the plants were not healthy enough to fight off all of the bugs and diseases that came their way. my good friends bruce and trisha have the most beautiful front yard garden each season. bruce gave me the following recipe for his soil:

this is the formula for a 4'x6'x1' box

-1 cubic foot of chicken manure
-2 pounds of rock phosphate
-2 cubic feet worm castings
-3 cubic feet of compost
- 1/2 pound oyster shell lime
mix all with enough potting soil(I use the brown bag "supersoil potting soil" from home depot)-it should take 16 or so bags to fill a 4x6 bed.
 
live and learn!

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